h beneath a lamp-post almost at his own doorstep.
He entered the house noiselessly, and from Madge's music-room there
floated down to him the sound of Chopin's great Funeral March. She
played this and some other favourites of her own as few musicians play
them, for music had been the one delight of her life, and but for the
fleeting theatrical ambition, and for Paul, she might have become famous
as an executant He stood in the hall to listen as the alternate wail and
triumph filled and thrilled the air, and thinking that she was alone, he
strolled silently to his dressing-room, and then in smoking-jacket and
slippers went to join her. Except for the glow of the fire the room was
in darkness, and a voice which came out of the darkness startled him.

'I had prepared myself to wait for hours,' said the voice; and Ralston
emerged from a shadowed corner with an outstretched hand--Ralston, with
his big sagacious head, all unexpectedly silver-white, and moustache
and beard of snow, but with the same old hand-grip, and the same
half-dictatorial, half-affectionate tone. Madge struck a resolving
chord, rose, and with a kiss and a whispered 'I know the news,' slipped
from the room before he could make an effort to detain her.

'Can we have a light on things?' said Ralston, in that hoarsely musical
growl of his. He struck a match as he spoke, and lit the gas, and then
marched sturdily to the door and closed it. 'You know me--you, Paul
Armstrong,' he said, turning to face the master of the house. 'I have
spent a fighting life, but I have never known a downright murderous fit
till now. Have you seen this?'

'Yes,' said Paul,' I've seen it.'

The journal Ralston haled from his pocket and held towards him was a
fellow to that he had just thrown away in the street.

'The carrion-hunting hound!' cried Ralston; 'I read this, and I came
straight here. I knew there was no hiding it from your wife. I say "your
wife," and I hold by the word until faith and friendship are as dead as
last year's leaves. She had to see it, Armstrong, and it was better that
a friend should bring it to her. Now, mind you, we who know her rally
round. We may be only two or three, but we are a fighting colony. I am
by way of being a cleric, but I don't always cut my linguistic coat
to suit my cloth, and my word at this hour is, Damn the bestial
ecclesiastical bigotry which seeks to tie the bodies of men and women
together when their souls are sundered! Here is a